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The Practice of Productiveness

When “saving time” creates more work | The Lantern

Published about 6 hours ago • 1 min read

The Lantern

by Mike Vardy

Vol. II, Issue 3 | March 14, 2026

Hello Reader,

For years we’ve been told the same story about technology: Each new tool promises the same thing: This will save you time.

Email was supposed to do it. Smartphones were supposed to do it. Productivity apps were supposed to do it.

Now the promise belongs to AI.

But a recent study from researchers at UC Berkeley Haas found something curious after observing a technology company for eight months: Generative AI wasn’t reducing work. It was intensifying it.

Employees worked faster, took on a broader range of tasks, and kept more work moving at once. The technology made starting things easier — so more things got started.

Work seeped into moments that used to be pauses. A quick prompt during lunch. A draft before a meeting. A new idea in the evening.

None of it felt unreasonable on its own. But it accumulated.

This is the quiet pattern that has followed productivity tools for decades: when our capacity increases, expectations tend to follow.

The ceiling moves.

Which is why I keep returning to a distinction that often gets lost: Productivity is the activity of producing. Productiveness is the state of being productive.

Productivity expands output. Productiveness asks whether the output is worth expanding.

AI is remarkably good at quantity. That’s where machines excel.

The opportunity — if we choose it — is to let that expansion give humans more room to deepen quality: better thinking, better judgment, better decisions.

But that only happens if we choose restraint.

Otherwise the system simply absorbs the gains and asks for more.

And the promise of “saving time” quietly becomes another way we fill it.

The Final Flicker

When technology makes more possible, the real challenge isn’t capability.

It’s knowing when enough is enough.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. Last call for the $29 founder spots for Your Clockwise Week. A handful are still available as I write this, but once they’re gone the founder rate is gone with them. If you’ve been considering having me design a week around your real rhythms, constraints, and priorities, this is the moment to grab one. Click here to do that.​

Thanks for reading.

Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.

Productivityist Productivity Services Inc. | 1411 Haultain Street, Victoria, BC V8R 2J6
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The Practice of Productiveness

Thoughts and practices for working with time—not against it.

I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity.

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